Finding Hope in Hopeless Situations

Psalm 131 – “O Lord, my heart in not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.”

Hopeless is an absolutely devastating place to find yourself. Even as a follower of Jesus I have been in situations that felt utterly hopeless, and I can say from experience, that having no hope is crushing and leads very quickly to despair.

In my own experience I found it helpful to remind myself that my feelings can and quite often will lie to me. In fact, as Jesus said in John 8:32, it is only the truth that will set you free. The truth for us in those difficult times is found in the last verse of this very short psalm. The Hope we desperately need is found only in the Lord.

There is no hopeless situation with Him. What seems to have no solution for us, is already worked out with God. When we have to “walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” as David said in Psalm 23, we also can put all fear aside, because God is with us in the valley and He is already waiting for us at the end of it, as well.

When the children of Israel left Egypt and found themselves with the Egyptian army behind them and the Red Sea in front of them, I’m sure many of them felt hopeless. When Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den and when Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace hope wasn’t easy to find. When the disciples had to watch their Messiah die on a cross, they each felt the crushing blow of hopelessness. But in fact, there was hope! God had an amazing solution to every one of these situations!

For the trial you find yourself in today, lift your eyes above yourself and your situation; just high enough to see that your Father in Heaven, the same God who victoriously handled all the previously mentioned crises, has you and your difficulties in His hands. Genuine hope comes from confidently trusting in Who God is and believing that He already has an answer to ALL hopeless situations.

The hope God gives us is not a ‘hope so’ or a ‘maybe we’ll be okay’ type of thing. The hope God gives us is absolute assurance. It is confident anticipation. Hoping in God is not necessarily knowing when the answer is coming, but we know for certain that IT IS COMING!

That’s the kind of hope the psalmist said causes him to be like a ‘weaned child with its mother’. A weaned child is not anxious about being fed. A weaned child is confident that its mother will feed and take care of all of its needs. That’s the way God wants us to be; trusting in who He has shown Himself to be in the past so we can walk through our trials and crushing disappointments with peace and confidence in the One who has our lives in His hands and who loves us more than we love ourselves.

So, my dear friends, whatever the day or this life brings, let us look to our loving, and ever faithful Father in Heaven and confidently “hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.”